Page 62 of Cruel Dreams

Ash steps forward, but I shake my head. “I’m sorry, I’m boring you. Perhaps this is more interesting...you may remember Stella Mayfair, my girlfriend around that time. You had a lot of fun calling her a gold-digging whore, and worse. Especially when manipulated pictures of her and Sergio Cardello surfaced online.Truth or Darecouldn’t get enough. Then she came back to King’s Crossing and told me she hadn’t been in Italy after all. Where had she been, you ask. Locked away at Black Enterprises for the last five years. Ash needed both Stella and Zarah silenced to keep his secrets.”

“That’s a lie,” Clayton bursts out, his face red. “Governor, we need security—”

“Clayton, I’m glad you spoke up,” I say smoothly over him. “Stella didn’t like being a prisoner, and she worked hard to gather information. She searched for anything that would explain why my parents died and a way to escape. Luckily for me, she did both.”

Mel changes the picture to the screenshot of Clayton’s email. She magnified the text allowing the audience to read the illegal arms deal between Clayton and the Middle Eastern recipient.

The crowd starts to murmur, and Clayton shouts, “That’s fake.”

“It could be, but it’s not. Clayton, you didn’t want anyone to find out you sold weapons on the black market. You sent my mom correspondence by mistake, and you had to fix it. There’s a paper trail connecting you to the pilot who crashed that plane. You murdered my parents.”

“Don’t believe anything he says,” Clayton demands, his voice carrying across the spacious room. “He hasn’t been the same since Kagan and Lark passed away. Kagan was my best friend, and I loved Lark like a sister. There’s no way in hell I would have been involved in their deaths.” He turns to me. “Ash was in love with Zarah for years, and after she broke down, he did right by her. You’re delusional, Zane. Let me find you help.”

He sounds sincere, his hand out as he steps toward me, as if to offer assistance.

“The only thing I need is to make sure you and Ash pay for what you’ve done to my family.”

Mel brings up the photos of the cargo ship. Crates of guns and the women Ash and Nora were going to sell flash on the screen. The party guests give Clayton a wide berth, backing slowly away as they watch our collage.

“I find it interesting,” I pretend to muse, “that this gala is to fund a foundation to end sex trafficking and to assist victims of such activity. The problem, Ash, is that because you’re an active part of the problem in King’s Crossing, and have been for years, it’s a huge conflict of interest. You partnered with Miss Guthrie because who else would know the ins and outs of the industry? How long have you been working together?”

“I would never—” Nora starts at the same time Governor Guthrie pleads, “Nora! Tell me that’s not true.”

I speak to the governor. “I have more than one witness placing her at a cargo ship—the same one the authorities seized yesterday. She’s also a possible accomplice. Ash killed my fiancée, Nathalie Barton, and she was there.”

“This is an outrage,” Mayor Huxley yells, his face a dangerous shade of purple, his jowls quivering. “I had no idea this was happening in my city. I’m going to prosecute the Blacks and Nora Guthrie to the fullest extent of the law!”

“That may be difficult to do from inside your own prison cell,” I say, my lips quirking.

Huxley sputters. “What do you mean?”

Mel plays the video Stella took of Nathalie and Huxley at the Black Cat Motel. We decided since Nathalie is no longer with us, her memory can’t be tarnished any more than it already is.

“I don’t think this is how our distinguished mayor should be acting. As we speak, the FBI is investigating Ash’s escort service, and you, Mayor Huxley, are not the only one to satisfy your sexual appetite using his girls.”

“You have no evidence. Everything I do is perfectly legal,” Ash says, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“We’ll let the FBI draw their own conclusions.”

Banks steps near Clayton, handcuffs dangling from his fingers. The other FBI agents and the detectives from the KCPD swarm the library.

“Stop!” Ash shrieks. He yanks a black handgun out of the waistband of his dress slacks and fires several shots into the crowd.

“Get down!” Banks yells over the guests’ frightened screams.

Governor Guthrie surges toward Nora. Ash swings in his direction and fires, and the governor drops to the floor.

Denton rushes past me and tackles Ash off his feet. The gun flies out of his hand and skitters across the library floor where it slides under a leather loveseat. Governor Guthrie’s security team closes around the dais, and I push through them into the crowd.

Nora tries to flee into the yard and she’s able to step onto the grass, but one of Banks’ men stops her, his weapon drawn and his finger curled around the trigger.

Two detectives approach Clayton, but either he’s smart enough not to resist arrest or he’s too stunned to think of it, watching an FBI agent cuff his son and shove him off the dais.

I search the room for Stella, but the space where she and Quinn were standing is full of screaming guests looking for the fastest way out of the library.

There’s not a thought in my head except needing to find Stella, but Max stops me. He’s lying on the floor, a wound near his heart and blood pooling under his body.

Mel didn’t ask us to wear bulletproof vests.

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